Investor Targeted Assets Depressed by 75% to 80%

Arthur Hayes, manager of the Maelstrom fund, is seeking assets with significant price declines to build future portfolio returns.

Updated on Oct. 13, 2026 in Investing

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Maelstrom fund manager Arthur Hayes is targeting established market assets that have undergone significant price corrections to build long-term portfolio returns. AI Illustration. Upload story photo >

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Arthur Hayes has shifted his investment strategy at the Maelstrom family office to focus on tokens that have seen their market values drop by 75% to 80%. This approach specifically excludes new token launches in favor of established, albeit heavily discounted, market assets.

Why it matters

Hayes is betting that institutional demand for tokenization and the rise of AI agents managing financial portfolios will drive long-term fee generation. He projects that assets aligned with this tech trend could eventually deliver 5x returns from their currently suppressed valuations.

Arthur Hayes is targeting assets down 75% to 80% from their recent levels with a goal of achieving 5x returns. Meanwhile, Bitcoin, his primary holding, recently traded at approximately $84,000 following a 0.7% price increase over 24 hours.

The players

Arthur Hayes

The CEO of Flop Labs and manager of the Maelstrom family office fund.

Maelstrom

A family office fund that maintains Bitcoin as its primary holding.

The details

The strategy relies on identifying assets that are already trading on the market and have undergone steep price corrections rather than participating in new token launches. Hayes anticipates that as Wall Street firms integrate tokenization into their financial services, AI agents will increasingly act as portfolio managers, creating new fee structures for the underlying assets that support these agentic workflows.

Timeline

  1. The decentralized finance market experienced significant activity during the 2020 cycle.

  2. Arthur Hayes discussed these investment strategies during an interview at Token2049 on October 13, 2026.

Money Landscape

This strategy follows the adoption cycle established by the 2020 decentralized finance summer. It marks a shift from early-stage speculative growth toward finding value in mature but neglected infrastructure that supports financial tokenization.

Investors should recognize that this strategy prioritizes high-risk, deeply discounted assets that require significant market timing and patience. As with any speculative investment strategy, consider discussing these asset classes with a qualified financial or tax professional before making changes.

The takeaway

The core insight is that deep price corrections in established assets may offer potential for value recovery if the underlying technology becomes a standard institutional tool. Watch for broader shifts in how financial service firms integrate AI agents and tokenization into their operations.

Further reading

For more information on market strategies and risk assessment, visit our Investing section.

Source note: This article includes information reported by Asianet News Network Pvt Ltd.

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